The hoards of people attempting to activate their brand new iPhone 4S have overloaded AT&T’s activation servers, resulting in some users receiving error messages saying “Could Not Activate iPhone”, followed by the message details:

“Your activation is still pending. You will receive an email notification once your activation is complete.

We’re sorry. There was a problem connecting to the server. Please try again later.”

Making it beyond that, many users are stuck at a screen that simply says “Activation” with the spinning wait cursor, alongside a message of “It may take up to 3 minutes to activate your iPhone.” In some cases, users have reported seeing that message for hours, not just minutes. Even attempting to activate through iTunes can result in the error message.

Possible solutions to “Could Not Activate” iPhone error:

Using your prior iPhone, dial AT&T’s 611 hotline and talk to a human for manual activation

Simply wait it out and try again later when AT&T’s servers catch up to demand

The activation trouble is reasonably widespread in the USA, and there are multiple growing forum threads on the matter already. Currently, CDMA providers such as Sprint and Verizon do not seem to be undergoing any problems activating phones.

This is the second hiccup this week due to immense demand of Apple’s latest and greatest releases. The first was a series of “internal error” messages related to installing iOS 5, the most prominent being Error 3200 and 3002.

I don’t look down at everyone else… just people who make impatient decisions and then whine about it. It’s just like when Lion came out and all these idiots complained about long download times a couple hours after the release. What did you think would happen??? It just came out!

If you want to wait in painfully long lines for phones, vampire & Harry Potter movies or whatever to “be the first”… knock yourself out. But don’t cry about the long waits or crappy seats when you knew that’s what you were going to get.

Tried to use AT&T website and got this message:
ACT005: We apologize for any inconvenience. iPhone users must connect to iTunes to activate service. All other users click here to register your mobile number and update your new equipment. If you need further assistance, please contact Customer Service at 1-800-331-0500.

I called ATT at 611 and they tried to activate my new Iphone 4S manually and they could not get it done. I have now been trying to activate this phone for 3 1/2 hours. ATT just does not prepare for these Apple events.

The website link above also worked for me on the first try. The phone activated immediately. I had tried online activation from AT&T Premier services as they told me to in the confirmation email when I ordered the phone, but it did not work at all.

this is lame. had my iPhone 4S mailed into me, then tried to activate it, and no luck. while my brother went into Apple at 4am and waited in line, and got it activated on the spot. AT&T IM NEVER RENEWING ANOTHER CONTRACT AS LONG AS I LIVE. YOU GUYS SUCK. =)

ACT005: We apologize for any inconvenience. iPhone users must connect to iTunes to activate service. All other users click here to register your mobile number and update your new equipment. If you need further assistance, please contact Customer Service at 1-800-331-0500.

Hey guys, I did a double hard reset on my new iphone 4s and went through the standalone activation again and it went right through. This after 2 hours of trying this afternoon. Hope this helps. Let me know if it works for anyone else.

My problem is, I don’t even get the activation sequence in the first place! The screen where it asks you to enter your billing information, the screen telling you it could take up to 3 minutes, etc…none of it even occurs!

I tried resetting my phone to factory settings, and this still didn’t work in terms of getting the screen to show.

I called AT&T and tried the whole “give them your IMEI and ICCID and they’ll do it for you” and no luck!

I tried plugging it into iTunes but iTunes doesn’t give me any activation prompts either!

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